In the 74 player field Richard finished in 25th place with a six round total score of 210(-6). Emily finished in 51st place with a score of 233(+17) on the 18-hole Arnold Palmer Crazy Golf course. Emily also finished 5th in the Castle Golf Women’s World Crazy Golf Championships.

The overall winner of the Castle Golf World Crazy Golf Championships was Oxford’s Michael Smith, who defeated Andy Exall and James Rutherford in a sudden-death play-off. Olivia Prokopova from the Czech Republic won the Castle Golf Women’s World Crazy Golf Championships.

Richard scored rounds of 36, 37, 33, 35, 33 and 36 for his 210(-6) total and said “This year’s World Crazy Golf Championships was the closest yet, there were so many players battling to make it into the top 18 and despite my best efforts I couldn’t seem to score enough Aces. Most of my shots were tap-ins for two this weekend so it’s frustrating that more of them didn’t drop in first time. I’ll be back for another crack at the World title next year and can’t wait for it.”

Emily scored rounds of 40, 39, 38, 39, 37 and 40 for her 233(+17) total and said “I was a little disappointed with my performance, although I don’t think the scores accurately represented how I was playing. But it was a fantastic tournament with a nail-biting final round and play-off”.

In total 17 tasks were set, with some activities also carrying bonus points. Altogether I have managed to complete 15 of the 17 tasks. The activities in the 2011 Putter King Miniature Golf Scavenger Hunt have had the hunting players designing new holes, playing new courses, showing off their minigolf ball collections, (re)learning Maths & Physics (in a fun way), doing arts & crafts, autograph hunting, scoring holes-in-one, creating minigolf trick shots and a whole lot more!

Details of the tasks, and links to photos and videos of the activities I have completed are below.

1) Autographs of 2 professional miniature golfers, each from a different country. (45 points; 5 bonus points if the professional miniature golfers are also from 2 different continents).
- One from five-time World Crazy Golf Champion Tim 'Ace Man' Davies (WAL/FRA) and one from Pat Sheridan (USA)

On Saturday 15th October 2011 a new Minigolf alliance was formed for one-match only as 'Squire' Richard Gottfried of the Midlands Minigolf Club (MMGC) and Michael 'HIOK' Smith of the Kent Minigolf Club (KMGC) joined up as the Oxfordshire Mini Golf Club (OMGC) to take on James 'The Rocket' Rutherford and Emily 'Lemony' Gottfried of the recently-formed Cambridgeshire Mini Golf Club (CMGC).

The 54-hole Doubles Match-up saw play begin on the Crazy Golf Course with Michael scoring a 33 and Richard a 34 for a combined score of 67. Emily and James could only manage scores of 42 and 35 for a combined 77.

Play then moved onto the Pirate Adventure Golf course, the newest of the three Sea Front courses in Hastings, and saw Michael hit a 31 and Richard a 37 for a 68 total. Emily scored a 40 and James a 34 for a team score of 74.

With the CMGC trailing the OMGC by 16 shots the deciding round was played on the Adventure Golf course, a course where 16 shots could be made up.

That wasn't to be the case though as Michael scored a great 37, with Richard scoring 42 for a combined 79. Emily also scored 42 but with James scoring 48 for a combined round of 90 the overall victory was to go Oxfordshire's way with a total of 214 to the CMGC's 241.

Photos: Emily and James of the CMGC see their chances of a win against the OMGC go up in smoke as they play into the mist on the Hastings Adventure Golf course

The event saw Town Criers from all over the UK competing to be crowned the National Champion and entrants were judged on 'volume, diction, clarity and inflection'.

The event was MC'd by Hastings' Town Crier Jon Bartholomew and as well as keeping the event rolling, he also let the audience know about the Hastings Beer and Battle Cider available from Hastings Brewery - which I have since found out is planning to launch a Gluten Free Beer soon!

Photo: Richard enjoys a Battle Cider while listening to the Town Criers Championships in Hastings

During the event the MC also asked the crowd to shout out 'Yay' if they were from Hastings, and 'Nay' if they were from elsewhere. With my stentorian voice I gave an almighty "Nay" to which one of the Town Criers stood nearby commented "You should be a Town Crier with that voice"!

Wednesday, October 26, 2011

Ahead of our trip to London last Saturday for the UK Rock Paper Scissors Championships I had a quick look online to see if London is home to any new Minigolf courses since my last visit and online search. I found out it is!

We headed along to the Portobello Gold pub and hotel and asked about the Mini Golf at the bar, only to be told that the course is on one of the hotel room balconies, so unfortunately we couldn't have a play of it. We did however get warmed-up with a few lunchtime drinks ahead of the evening's big sporting event at the RPS Championships!

Alexandra Palace is also home to what I have heard is a very good Pitch & Putt course, and a Putting Green. both of which are run by Golfwise, a company which runs a number of Pitch & Putt courses around the country. We've visited their site in Chelmsford, in 2009, and we had time to play a few of the holes on the course, which was in great condition and very testing. Back in 2010 we also visited the site in Upminster which is still currently closed. On our roadtrip to Lincolnshire earlier this year we ran out of time and didn't manage to play their other Pitch & Putt course on South Parade in Skegness.

Monday, October 24, 2011

On Saturday 22nd October the 2011 Sportingbet UK Rock Paper Scissors Championships took place at The Knights Templar Pub on Chancery Lane, London. Over 200 people took part in the Individual and Team Competitions at the event organised by the team at Wacky Nation, with 128 players battling to become the 2011 UK RPS Champion. For the third year running the winner came from Woking! With the 2011 honours going to Max Deeley.

The 2011 tournament used a knockout format rather than the round-robin system employed last year, this meant that players were only guaranteed one match and Brad 'The Fist' Shepherd was the first of our group to fall, losing in the first round. I followed soon after with a straight 2-nil defeat. Brad and I were in good company in our losing efforts, as the 2010 UK RPS Champion - Paul Lewis - also fell at the first hurdle.

Photo: Richard shows that three hands are not better than two

Photo: Brad 'The Fist' Shepherd (bottom right) cuts a lonely figure having crashed out in the first round

Marc 'The Roller' Bazeley was the only member of our troupe to be drawn on the rowdier Table One, but despite nerves on his debut won through round one. However, in round two he was drawn to face a giant of a man who almost dislocated 'The Roller's' shoulder in the opening handshake! This obviously impaired Bazeley who unfortunately lost the match and decided to make the long journey back to Wellingborough, but not before he gave a post-match interview.

In the Team contest 16 teams of four players lined-up to be crowned Champions. Our team - The Guild of Rock Paper Scissors - finished in tied 5th/6th place, alongside longtime Dodgeball rivals the WDW, following a win in the first round, but a loss in the Quarter Finals. The team consisted of myself, Emily, Ollie and Paul 'The Terminator' Jones, who didn't enter the individual event but instead spent his time sharking people in Challenge RPS matches.

Ahead of the tournament the competition sponsor Sportingbet had a betting special running with a number of different markets priced up. Emily and I managed to recoup some of our spending with a win on the winning hand combination.

On Sunday 16th October Luton Minigolfers Richard and Emily Gottfried competed in the eleventh-annual Planet Hastings Crazy Golf Club Open. The three-round tournament was played out over 54-holes on the three seafront miniature golf courses in Hastings, East Sussex.

23 players competed in the event, with Emily finishing in tied sixth place with fellow Great Britain International, Scotland’s Freddie Blackburn-Shaw, after both players scored 112. Richard finished four shots back in tied 10th place alongside 2008 PHCGC Open Champion Trevor Exall and Richard Stevenson. The tournament was won by Oxford’s Michael Smith with a score of 98.

Photo: Emily plays the 16th hole of the Crazy Golf course in Hastings

Following the tournament Emily said “This was a great tournament. Playing on three courses in one go is a challenge, as all three are so different, but that does even out the field, because no-one player is the best on all three courses. So I was really pleased with how well I played and very happy with 6th place. It was also really good fun as the courses and the people of Hastings are always a pleasure.”

Photo: Richard plays the 4th hole of the Crazy Golf course in Hastings

Richard said “I had a nightmare round on the Adventure Golf course and couldn’t buy a hole-in-one on the Pirate course. My round of 34 on the Crazy Golf course wasn’t too bad and was good preparation for the upcoming World Crazy Golf Championships, let’s hope the weather then is as good as it was for the Planet Hastings Open.”

Saturday, October 22, 2011

Last October the Putting Course at Greenhill Gardens in Weymouth became the 204th played on our Crazy World of Minigolf Tour. It's a brilliant course, with excellent views. While we didn't have time to replay the course on our visit to Weymouth this year we did spend some time looking around the very well maintained gardens.

According to the signs around Greenhill Gardens, the Putting Green is open every day from 10am (weather permitting).

Wednesday, October 19, 2011

On Monday 10th of October 2011 I headed to St Georges Square, Luton to take part in the Guinness World Record attempt for the most people to ‘High Five’ simultaneously. The event was held to mark World Mental Health Day and was organised by the Make A Difference (MAD) group.

The previous/current record stands at 1,790 people simultaneously High Fiving, but the MAD attempt counted over 2,100 people taking part.

Tuesday, October 18, 2011

On Saturday Poole Park 8th of October 2011 we made a stop off at Poole Park in Dorset to revisit the Crazy Golf and Putting courses there and also to finally meet minigolf friend and twitterer/facebooker extraordinaire Mick Gisbourne.

I have entered the Putter King Minigolf Hole Design Contest with my hole 'The Jewel in the Crown' which incorporates the Putter King's 'regal' theming into a very tricky uphill hole with a raised green, where the hole is enclosed by a Crown!

Ahead of the upcoming 2011 UK Rock Paper Scissors Championships a bunch of Minigolfers, some of whom will be competing in the tournament, faced-off in The Weymouth Preliminaries Rock Paper Scissors Contest at the Weymouth Annual Octoberfest Beer Festival.

The tournament saw five competitors square-off in 'best-of-3' matches. The results and order of play were a little hazy, possibly due to the effects of the environment that the contest took place in!

Firstly, a 'random' draw was held to see who would face who in Round One, and then battle commenced...

As an aside, if you do visit Felpham then the Beachcroft Hotel is very close to the course and the restaurant there does some very good food. We dined there with both the 'Gluten Free' and 'normal' options after our round of Minigolf and before the long journey back home. Very tasty it was too.

Saturday, October 15, 2011

The 275th Miniature Golf course played on our Crazy World of Minigolf Tour was the 18-hole Arnold Palmer Mini-Golf course at Waterloo Gardens, on the esplanade in Bognor Regis, West Sussex.

We visited and played the course on Sunday 2nd October 2011.

The course is in excellent condition and in a great location. With the very warm weather on the day the course was also very busy every time we walked past it, but we managed to find a time when we wouldn't have any large groups in front of us and jumped on for a round as part of our Irregular Mini Golf Tour competitions.

In our match-up Emily beat me 39-42 with a start of two Aces in a row. However this was followed by two 3's, but she still scored an 'out' of 18. Some excellent play on an excellent Crazy Golf course.

Unfortunately neither of us managed to win a FREE GAME on the Lucky Last Hole.